Gun Shop Experts

There is a long list of places where you can get lousy information on guns. National Public Radio, The Brady Campaign website, cocktail parties in Berkeley, the MoveOn.org message boards.

Add your neighborhood gun store to the list.

I'm no expert, so I ask a lot of questions. And because very few other people are experts, I check the answers. The list of Dumb Things I've Heard In Gun Shops includes such gems as:

"Disconnecting the magazine safety in a Browning Hi-Power is illegal."

"Its not loaded." (Said of a shotgun that was pointing at my middle)

"You'll ruin that pistol if you dry fire it." (It was a Glock.)

"With a shotgun for home defense, you don't even have to aim"

The latest addition to this list is something I heard at a gun shop when I was looking for something to treat the unfinished stock on an M1 Garand. While the Gun Shop Guy was hunting up a can of Tru-Oil, I mentioned that I'd just gotten the rifle from the CMP.

"Oh really?," he said. "Which of their stores did you drive to?"

I was puzzled. "I didn't have to go anywhere," I told him. "They FedExed it to me."

"That's illegal," he snapped.

"Well, if its illegal," I said "They're breaking the law about 3000 times a month." We went around and around but he didn't budge.

In Gun Shop Guy's world, its illegal to send guns by courier service, and the CMP didn't really send me a Garand, even though its in my safe right now.

Also, when the plunger tube on my SW1911 flew downrange in proud emulation of a 230-grain round, it was illegal for me to send it to Smith and Wesson, and double-secret illegal for them to send it back to me, after they fixed it. (Thanks, guys!)

Its not illegal for Gun Shop Guy to sell me Tru-Oil, thanks be to Zoroaster.

When I get the stock all treated and pretty. Ill post a picture of my non-existant, illegally shipped rifle that I got from the FedGov, in a FedEx box.